Benjamin Storm
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Forgetting in human memory

Benjamin Storm’s main line of work has been on the topic of retrieval-induced forgetting. Storm has contributed to our understanding of how forgetting functions to eliminate competition during selective retrieval, which then facilitates thinking, problem solving, creativity, and the updating of autobiographical memory. His recent research shows that the inhibition underlying retrieval-induced forgetting plays a role in the positivity bias individuals show in autobiographical memory, the tendency for people to remember more positive events from their past than they do negative events.